Sunday, 15 January 2012

Those Avengers Vs X-Men Line-Ups in Almost Full

Marvel have released about fifteen or so teaser images for the big "Avengers Vs X-Men" event coming later this year, featuring the rival characters pairing off against each other. Now, these may never actually happen in the comics, and may just be teases. But if they're all true, what should we expect? Let's go through some of the fights Marvel are teasing and see which ones look most interesting.

Gambit Vs Spider-Woman! A fight which nobody expects to end without the two characters having sex. In honesty, this doesn't seem to be a fight which we'll actually see in the event, as neither character is really that important for their team. Gambit barely counts as an X-Man, and it's very hard to remember the last time Spiderwoman said anything.

Nice to see that Emma Frost's got over the arm problem that Kieron Gillen gave her, and glued it back on. Her big boost into A-List status came about in the first place as Grant Morrison wanted somebody tough and strong to survive the Genosha massacre, so it's no big leap to set her up against Hulk. Interesting that it's Green Hulk though, and not Red. Green Hulk isn't on the Avengers at all. But if he does show up for this fight, it would make sense to do a psychological fight rather than a physical fight - it allows Jason Aaron, the current Hulk writer, a chance to really investigate his lead character.

Obviously this was going to happen. Carol Danvers and Rogue have such a long history that there was really no other character for either of them to go up against. This fight seems destined to be written by Brian Michael Bendis, who is a big fan of them both.

Another fight which seems obvious, only we're not so sure that we'll be seeing this at any point. For one thing, Storm's main point of conflict in AvX comes not from any of the currently active Avengers, but from her estranged husband Black Panther. Panther has been an Avenger in the past, and has never seemed to have any particular love for the X-Men. It seems very likely indeed that he'll be siding against Storm, and that's where Storm's story will lead. For another thing, there's still no sign that Matt Fraction wants to end his current weird "Tanarus" replacement story thing. If Thor shows up, we won't be expecting it until towards the end of the story, as a last-page cliffhanger.

Very doubtful that this will happen. Beast has no loyalty, and will be supporting the Avengers during this event.

Interesting that this seems to be happening all over the World. With Phoenix approaching, will both teams be spreading out to make sure that wherever Phoenix lands, one of them will be nearby? Or it might be that the X-Men have that as their plan, but the Avengers are simply following them round the World, ready to catch them out? At any rate, it's no surprise that the two 'strong' characters are fighting each other during AvX.

Don't think that Wolverine will be siding with the X-Men during this event, but it makes for an interesting teaser image at any rate. If Wolverine does have any kind of conflict of character, we'd expect him to side with neither the X-Men or the Avengers - he'll side with whoever can contain the Phoenix. Captain America, on the other hand, certainly seems to be making a massive mistake by trying to take Hope away from the X-Men. That will be the moment which makes or breaks the event - is it plausible that the Avengers wouldn't trust the X-Men to look after Hope?